


Come When It Will Come

by teenagewinchester



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson, M/M, Office AU, alex is sad, everyone else is background - Freeform, implied non-binary lafayette, james is comforting, literally hercules is mentioned for like a hot second, literally the only characters that are like really in this are Alex and Thomas and James, why do i write sad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenagewinchester/pseuds/teenagewinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is born seeing the world entirely in white, black, and shades of grey. They say that when you meet your soulmate, the first time you look each other in the eyes the world explodes into vivid color. They say when one soulmate dies, the other looses the ability to see the colors, everything fading back into grey. That's the one way to know for certian, wherever you are and however much distance separates you, that your soulmate is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come When It Will Come

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I write sad things. It's not like Hamilton's life wasn't sad enough or anything. But yeah, we get more sadness. Joy.
> 
> Some quick notes before we begin:
> 
> 1\. Alex and Thomas are already an established couple when this story takes place. I might go back and write how they meet or add stories to flesh out their history, but I'm not sure yet. I just wanted to write some established jamilton sadness. Sorry in advance :(  
> 2\. As the tags say, there is character death, but it doesn't happen "on-screen", as it were. This story is all characters reacting to it - we don't actually see the person die. If you read the story and are unsure how they die, the notes at the end will clarify.  
> 3\. This is my first fic, so I'd love it if y'all would leave a comment at the end if you feel so inclined! I love hearing what you guys have to say!
> 
> With all that said, onto the story!

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

William Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_ 2.2.33-37

* * *

He was sitting in a meeting, in the same room where it began, when it ends.

Alexander was scribbling furiously as Adams droned on in the background, white noise crowded out by the words racing at a mile a minute in Hamilton’s brain. Washington was sitting at the head of the conference table, the only one actually listening to whatever nonsense Adams is espousing at the moment – everyone else was either feigning interest or not so sneakily checking their phones under the table. Of course, as the president of the company, Washington was more or less obligated to listen to Adams talk. Alexander bears no such burden, something he thanked God for every single meeting.

Despite Adams’ monotone voice, the conference room was much quieter than usual. By this point in these kinds of meetings Jefferson and Hamilton were typically at each other’s throats, shouting at each other over whatever company policy they’re disagreeing on at the moment. _But Thomas isn’t here right now_ , Alexander reminded himself. Instead he was in a car, driving back from Monticello after spending a week and a half there taking care of family business. Alexander had desperately wanted to go with him, but Thomas had said no with a soft laugh and a kiss on his forehead as they were lying on their couch. “You would go insane, _mon ange_. Besides, you’ve got a big presentation this week, don’t you?” At Alexander’s pout, Thomas had laughed and pulled him up so he could lie across his chest. “How about I take you this Christmas, when there’s less work for both of us, hmm?” He had pressed their lips together, and that had been the end of that discussion.

Alexander set his pen down and rubbed his eyes, glancing at the clock mounted on the wall. Only forty-five more minutes, and then he could go home. He had drafted Lafayette into helping him cook a special welcome home dinner for Thomas, though Lafayette would probably end up doing most of the actual cooking and Alexander would just measure and hand them things. He had learned a long time ago when he had managed to burn pasta while it was still in the water that cooking was not his strongest suit.

Alexander shifted in his seat, looking lazily around the conference room. Even before he and Thomas had met, he always thought this room was incredibly drab. The walls were an off white, the carpet grey – he had been terribly disappointed to find that the room was just as boring after he met his soulmate and the world exploded into color as it had been before. The clothes of the men and women around him were certainly colorful – everyone in this meeting had already met their soulmate, and tended to choose more colorful clothing now that they could clearly see what matched and what didn’t. Angelica’s dress was a soft shade of coral; Madison’s shirt was forest green; Washington’s suit was navy blue. And the room around them was still boring as hell.

It was probably because of the drabness of the room that he didn’t notice anything was wrong at first. It wasn’t until he looked across the table at Adams when he sat back down that he noticed he couldn’t see the red of the man’s bow tie anymore.

Alexander’s chest tightened, his breath catching in his throat. He had heard stories about this, mostly from older couples; stories where both went to sleep side by side and one woke up the next morning to a world of greys and whites and blacks and a body pressed up next to theirs. _This is a mistake_ , Alexander thought to himself. He was only twenty-five, for God’s sake. It had to be some sort of mistake.

But much to Alexander’s horror, colors continued to disappear as he watched. The pinky tones of Angelica’s dress faded to light greys, the bright yellow legal pads turning only a few shades darker than the dress, Washington’s suit becoming a washed out charcoal. Alexander looked down; even his own clothes, the sky blue blazer that Thomas loved him so much in – _I wore it today for him, so it’d be the first thing he saw when he came inside_ – was turning to the color of ashes.

“Alexander?” Alex’s head snapped up at the sound of Burr’s voice. Every other color in the room had faded while he had been staring at his own jacket, turning everything back to the dull greys he had seen until a year and a half ago. Everything except the tie Aaron had chosen to wear that day. Aaron, who he knew hated him, perhaps more than anyone in this room, and yet was looking at him with concern prickling in his eyes. Aaron, who was the first person Alex had spoken to when he came to work under Washington. Aaron, who had chosen to wear a purple tie today, the first color Alexander ever saw and the last color he could see now.

_Purple. Thomas’s favorite color._

And within seconds of laying eyes on it, that was gone too.

“Alexander?” A warm hand appeared on his shoulder. Alex jumped at the touch, and realized to some surprise that he was shaking. “Son, are you alright?” Washington asked. No one else ever called him son.

Alex looked up at Washington’s face, frown lines of concern around his eyes. “S-sir, I’m…” He couldn't get the words out to describe what was wrong. How ironic – the man who wrote his way out of everything suddenly finding his words stolen. He stood suddenly and pushed his chair aside, walking with jerky, desperate steps toward the door. It was too hot and the room was too small and grey. “Excuse me a moment, please.”

The air outside the conference room wasn’t much better than inside, but at least he felt slightly less suffocated. He considered going to his office, but tossed aside the idea. His steps were unsteady, his whole body shaking with the effort of keeping some unnameable feeling inside; he’d never make in across the room to his office without collapsing under the weight of it. His trembling hands found the handle to the staff bathroom, and he disappeared inside without a second thought.

Inside he leaned against the granite counter tops, balling his hands into fists on either side of the sink. His eyes were squeezed shut, realizing numbly that he was crying. He wanted nothing more than to scream, but no sound would come out – just gasping, uneven breaths he didn’t want to take.

It had to be a mistake. A false alarm. He was working too hard, his body wasn’t able to keep up with the demands he placed on himself. He would go home, take a nap before Lafayette showed up, wake up, and the world would be alive with color again. He and Lafayette would make dinner, Thomas would come inside with a cheerful shout down the hallway of, “Guess who’s home?” and Alexander would hug him close and kiss him and forget this ever happened. _It has to be a mistake_ , he kept telling himself. _Thomas is fine, he’s always careful driving home from Virginia. He’ll be here before you know it, and you’ll both have a good laugh at that time you cried in the staff bathroom because you thought he died._

Intellectually Alexander knew that these things were never mistakes. Soulmates were nothing to mess around with. The colors were never wrong – everyone knew that. But they had to be wrong, there had to be a mistake somewhere. This was Thomas.

Thomas, who had eyes Rembrandt would have spent years trying to capture just perfectly on his canvas. Thomas, who had a physique Michelangelo would have begged to sculpt into marble. Thomas, who had a soul and a heart that Shakespeare would have died to immortalize in the lines scribbled across the pages of his work. His Thomas, composed of lightning, fire in his veins, starlight in his eyes, who touched him so sweetly and loved him so dearly and flooded his every thought like chaotic poetry, who was never afraid to argue with him, who held him together when he cracked apart, who was his one and only muse, who texted him sappy quotes from _Romeo and Juliet_ at all hours of the day, who put up with his weird sleeping habits (or lack thereof), who reminded him to eat, who sang French lullabies to him when storms raged outside their house, who had kissed him on their front step and whispered, “See you in a week and a half, _mon ange_.”

It had to be a mistake. But the colors were never wrong.

“Alexander?” Alex jumped. He hadn’t heard someone else come in, could have sworn he locked the door, but standing next to him was none other than James Madison. He and James had been good friends one before having something of a falling out – Alex couldn’t be bothered to remember about at the moment. It had been Thomas that brought them back together, and thought Alexander wouldn’t necessarily call them friends, he had a comfortable familiarity with James. Madison laid a hesitant hand between Alex’s shoulder blades. “Alex? Are you okay?”

At that Alexander huffed out a thin laugh. “Does it look like I’m okay, James?”

Madison did chuckle at that, though more of his nervousness leaked into it than he would have liked. “Okay, not a great question.” Madison took him by the shoulders, turning Alex away from the mirror hanging over the sink to face him. “What’s wrong, Alex? You’ve never walked out of a meeting like that before.”

Alexander didn’t want to say it out loud. Saying it meant that it was real, that this wasn’t a dream, that this wasn’t something he could fix. But James was Thomas’s best friend, aside from himself. If anyone in this entire office deserved to know, it was James Madison. Alex swallowed down the lump in his throat. It didn’t go away.

“Thomas.” He managed to get out. He sniffled, refusing to meet Madison’s eyes. “I… I can’t see the colors anymore.” He knew that James knew exactly what that meant.

He felt Madison got stiff, his hands still on Alexander’s shoulders. They stood in silence for a moment until James breathed a soft, “Alex…” Alexander looked up at James’s face, at eyes filled with sadness and grief and worry, at grey irises that he had seen as brown until minutes ago, and threw his pride to the wind. He rested his head against Madison’s shoulder and let that unnameable feeling drag him under and drown him in pain.

He barely registered that he was sobbing, probably ruining Madison’s blazer with his tears, or that James’s arms were around his shoulders. He was being loud, probably loud enough that the rest of the office could hear him, but as long as none of them came in he didn’t particularly care if they heard him. They would probably find out sooner or later anyway.

“Shh Alexander,” James soothed, one hand in Alex’s hair (when had his ponytail come undone?). He didn’t complain when Alex didn’t quiet in the slightest, but rather hugged him just a little bit tighter and continued to allow Alex to cry and scream into his shoulder for as long as he needed to.

When the sobs had calmed to shaking and sniffling, Madison inclined his head down towards Alex. “Do you want to go home?”

Alex shook his head, not lifting it from James’s shoulder. Home smelled too much like Thomas, had his fingerprints all over it. He couldn’t go back there now.

“Is there anyone you can stay with?”

At that Alex lifted his head a little. “Lafayette and Hercules,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “They would probably let me crash on their couch.”

“Lafayette would be on the second floor, right?” Alex nodded. “Okay, I’ll get them and get your things. Angelica took it all back to your office after you left the meeting.” He shifted Alexander in his arms so he could look him in the face. “Will you be okay if I leave you by yourself for a couple of minutes?”

Alex nodded. Being alone didn’t sound particularly nice right now, but he was rapidly losing the energy to care about much of anything.

Madison attempted to give him a smile. “I’ll be right back with Lafayette and your stuff, okay?” Alex didn’t say anything, didn’t even look up, so Madison took that as his cue to duck out and fetch Lafayette. His hand was on the door handle when he heard Alex mumble something behind him. Madison turned back toward him. “What?”

Alexander looked up at him with red eyes that made James’s heart hurt. “‘Take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.’” He said. “It’s Shakespeare. Thomas liked to do that – send me sappy little quotes to make me smile.” Alex laughed, a pitiful little sound that made James want to hug him again. “He texted me that one this morning, before he left Monticello.”

James didn’t know what to say to that, wasn’t sure he could say anything without the tears simmering just below the surface slipping out. “Two minutes. I’ll be back with Lafayette.” James opened the door just enough to slip out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind him.

And Alex was left alone again, surrounded by grey.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. In case it wasn't clear (which it probably wasn't, I'm not very good at implying things), Thomas died in a car accident. Killed on impact sort of stuff. I may write this story from his perspective, but I'm not sure yet.
> 
> Here's the full version of that final Shakespeare quote that Thomas sent to Alex:  
> "Give me my Romeo. And when I shall die,  
> Take him and cut him out in little stars,  
> And he will make the face of heaven so fine  
> That all the world will be in love with night  
> And pay no worship to the garish sun."  
> Romeo and Juliet, 3.2.23-27
> 
> I'm a sucker for Shakespeare, so you will likely see him crop up many more times if I write more in this particular universe. I have a couple more jamilton fics planned unrelated to this universe, so we'll see what becomes of those and what becomes of this universe. Feel free to leave me a comment and tell me if you want more in this universe. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope the rest of your day is as wonderful and amazing as you are!


End file.
